Censorship and content in Indian Films

By Vivek S Legendragod

The Indian film industry, inclusive of all its regional language industries – Malayalam (Mollywood), Tamil (Kollywood), Telugu (Tollywood), Kannada (Sandalwood), Hindi (Bollywood), etc. stand united under the issue of censorship by CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification), apart from other problems unimportant like misogyny, female objectification, masala, star-driven movies, plagiarism and piracy.

One might say, these same problems are real even for British and American films (Hollywood), so what’s the big deal? Well, if you ask that way nothing is and the article can end here. But no! We shall go on to discuss the topic title.

The Indian film audience can be divided into two groups – ones who watch movies to while away their time with family and friends on their weekends; as a medium of entertainment, nothing wrong in that and they form the majority. These are the target audience for any entertainment flick which is marketed and packaged with glam and props with or without a proper storyline. The other being a minority who view films critically and as a form of art.

Picture: Sai Tamhankar in Hunterrr (Hindi) movie

The latter category appreciates films for their rawness and sees how grounded they are within the field of play of the movie; the genre and fictional scenario. For example, in a film which tells the story of the brothel and the prostitutes within, not expecting scenes where the actors bare it all, is stupidity. It is not necessary that there should be such a scene, but you can’t dismiss the possibility of one either. Similarly, you know what to expect in a movie marketed as a sex comedy. 

However, a film (can’t name just one) which is solely for the purpose of satisfying youngsters (and keeping in mind the high amount of rape cases in the villages of northern India maybe even horny old men) by showing the story of a female who constantly strips and sleeps on her way to become a star and GLORIFYING the same is not welcomed. Might as well, sit back and watch porn for free. But alas! More than 70% of the Indian population still doesn’t have Internet, and this issue crumbles under other heavyweights like sanitation, healthcare, education, and electricity.

Picture: Kya Kool Hain Hum 3 (Hindi movie)

But the true issue is, like any other government department, the corruption ingrained into film certification too is staggeringly high. It is a common occurrence that a low budget movie with minimal necessary gore scenes may be certified as an ‘A’ on the other hand, a film with an A-Star actor having extreme female objectification and glorifying that, case example being a “hero” creeping into the “heroine’s” bedroom while she changes her clothes or kissing her without consent, gets a ‘U’ certificate. How the f***?

Picture: Anubhava (Kannada movie)

Simple, in India you slap your obstacles with money and they give way.

Having established this, the role of the CBFC is to think through whether a particular scene makes sense with the overall plot of the film or is just meant for compulsive reasons and censor them accordingly.

Another new, issue that films are facing is “re-censorship”. A movie once censored and certified, after release, a particular association (probably the one accused in the film) files a case to remove those ‘objectional’ scenes. This goes to a whole new level when the accused in the film is the state or central government.

Picture: Mersal (Tamil Movie)

Picture courtesy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyWXRjN1G_I

Just a couple of months back, a Tamil film – Mersal, was trending in social media under the title “#MersalvsModi”, where people express their opinion on the demand by the Tamil Nadu wing of BJP to remove scenes from the movie where the lead character asks why the government isn’t providing free healthcare despite high GST. This wouldn’t have happened for a smaller film, but since the protagonist is an A-Star actor giving hints of political entry with the enormous fan base in a state where there is a large political vacuum, paints a simple dialogue with all the right relevance to the plot of the movie, in a greater sense. We can never tell what the real intentions are. To see it as just another movie or to be wary of the hidden political agenda for which the film is a propagation medium. We never really can say.

The challenge of censorship lies here, in a country where innuendos are plenty and a lot of people are uneducated especially (Education here is not going to school for 16 years) therefore tend to fall to marketing gimmicks and irrational profanities which are cancerous.

If you observe keenly, you will realize that the film industry works like democracy to a great extent, where the screen is the jeep, the screenplay is the manifesto, and your tickets to the theatre are the votes. The more you ‘vote’ for such entertainers the more those kinds of movies get made.

In an ideal situation, films should only be certified, after all the second ‘C’ in CBFC stands for Certification Not Censorship. But for that to happen, creators and actors should start to treat their movies with more honesty and people should become more aware of what they are paying for and become more demanding towards good content which does justice to what the film stands for.

As an avid film-goer, I hope that there comes a time when we can proudly present our content to the world.

Hasta La Vista!

Check out my blog at https://legendragod.wordpress.com/for more such articles